‘People say bereavement gets easier... it’s not at the moment’

It is immortalised in the first ever Elizabeth Cross, presented to her after the death of her husband Warrant Officer Sean Upton, blown up by a detonated Improvised Explosive Device (IED) in the Sangin District of Helmand Province in 2009.

The cross symbolises the strength of all those families who have lost loved ones in Afghanistan and the sacrifice not only her husband, but she and her two young children, Ewan, 12, and Hollie, nine, have made.

“He had gone on tour to Iraq and Afghanistan a number of times,” said Mrs Upton, 35, who was supported by ABF – The Soldiers’ Charity following her bereavement and now campaigns on the charity’s behalf.

“I definitely found it got harder every time he went. It is harder now because every day you hear what is happening and you think anything can happen to them.

“Something in the back of your mind makes you put the news on. The day he died, I had a funny feeling, even as soon as I woke up. I was driving my mum to work in Driffield and told her something was not right. Then when I came back, there was a silver Vauxhall Astra outside our house with a notification officer there.

“People say the bereavement makes it easier as time goes on, but it is not getting any easier at the moment.”

The couple, who were childhood sweethearts, moved to Catterick Garrison from Nottingham in 2000, where Warrant Officer Upton was posted with the 5th Regiment Royal Artillery.

“I found it difficult at first, I couldn’t drive, I had a new baby and didn’t know anybody up here,” she said. “It was quite scary. I remember one weekend catching the National Express bus with Ewan and going home as I felt the pressure was too much to cope. When Sean died in 2009, we left the family home in Catterick and moved back to Nottingham, but after three months we came back. My friends have been brilliant here because they understand. You still feel part of an Armed Forces network and in a way people know it could be them. The fear of bereavement and injury is something you are hearing constantly around Catterick.”

The Elizabeth Cross is awarded to the next-of-kin of Armed Forces personnel killed on active service, or as a result of terrorism, in a mark of national recognition of their loss.

The name of a reigning monarch had not been given to an award since the George Cross was instituted in 1940.